


A Home of Your Own Making

by JessicaPendragon



Series: Canon Keela Lavellan [10]
Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 07:29:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3348731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessicaPendragon/pseuds/JessicaPendragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Solas remembers many things, knows many things, and there is one thing above all others he is certain of: They do not have many moments left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Home of Your Own Making

Solas keeps his eyes on her as they enter the Exalted Plains. They have been here before but there was no time for careful study. He had grabbed her hand and rushed them to save Wisdom, ignoring every time she pulled back to catch glimpses of ruins or snippets of paint. Even when he retreated after seeking revenge, he knows she did not linger in this place as pressing matters called her elsewhere. Now there is time for exploration, to react to the stolen homeland of the Dalish. Her home.

She doesn’t seem to really hear Scout Harding’s report and completely ignores the requisitions officer. Her feet move to rest beneath a large statue holding an empty bowl. Keela reads the small plaque and flicks her wrist, fire bursting to life within the container, before she stares into the weathered faces lost to history. He wants to ask of her thoughts in this moment but stills his curious tongue for once. This moment is not for him, even if his influence can be seen in every broken structure, in every sentence unfinished. In every grave unmarked and forgotten.

The Inquisitor presses on with her companions in tow. Blackwall and Cassandra are quiet, respectful, and Solas has a new appreciation for the warriors even though he can see a tick of annoyance flutter across the Seeker’s features. Keela is moving too slow for her tastes and in the wrong direction it seems. They stop beneath the broken bridge just outside camp and her miraculous golden-green eyes look at the drawing leaping across its surface. How it has survived the ravages of time and war, Solas does not even know. Her marked hand raises as if to caress the ancient paint, but the creature is too far out of reach. 

She turns to take in the shattered, burnt landscape around them before her gaze settles upon him. He sees many things in her expression – awe, horror, anger, longing. Something lost in a place that should be known.

Keela is quiet as they move forward and encounter these Freemen of the Dales and ruined ramparts infested with the undead. Her magic burns hotter than normal when it sears passed to incinerate enemies, her movements stiff, frenzied at times. As they press onward towards the river each tattered piece of her culture they pass inches her shoulders up into a tight bunch. Her fire carries them across the plains to the cradle of a river coursing through and that is where she extinguishes for the night. A staff clatters to the ground, thrown from fingers that refuse to settle, and then she is gone to her own devices with the air simmering in her wake while they make camp.

He gives her time to cool, to collect. Perhaps he should not approach her at all, but he finds himself incapable of standing on the shore anymore. Not when it comes to her. This fleeting world cements around her, the effect rippling out across everything she touches, and he  _sees_. It is ill-advised, as he once told her, but those words he no longer feels with conviction when he touches her skin, when he tastes her vibrancy instead of ashes in his mouth. 

He finds her on the dock with bare feet dangling just above the shivering surface. Her dark hair made darker from a bath in the river and he wonders how she can stand the chill knowing how she hates it so. Water still drips from her neck and legs and he tries not to linger on how her shirt clings to flesh. Solas is not sure what to say to her. Never is she so still for her fire always burns hot and bold, but now seems to simmer on cooling coals. He might expect her to begin another war with the humans herself or rave on about the foolishness of the Dalish - a thing he might have encouraged once, but now…

Now he knows he has always seen his faults when he has gazed at her people. His people, no matter the lies he tells even himself. He has witnessed the greatness of the last of the Elvhen for the roots are sunk deep in this place, mirrored in the strength of those stretching across her cheeks. Their journey here is changing them both, and while he feels anchored to the ground, chains made of bone and broken dreams, she has spent the day walking upon it as if she wishes gravity would cease and cast her away.

“This land is seeped in memory,” he says at last. She has always enjoyed his stories of the Fade and perhaps they will ease her mind now. “I visited  _Dirthavaren_  before during my many travels. The history called to me even during my waking hours. I dreamed for weeks in hidden places and within open ruins uncovered by any mortal hands. Through the Fade I walked in glistening halls with great trees bowed to make cathedrals, witnessed battles both bloody and futile. If you like, I can-”

“ _No_.” Her voice is dark, made harsh by emotions she’s trying to strangle in her throat. “I do not want to hear a single word about this place.”  

“Forgive me, I do not mean to upset you-”

“Leave me be, Solas,” she says and stands, feet leaving heavy imprints in the sand back towards camp. She makes for her tent and if a leather flap could slam shut it would do so as Keela storms inside. 

Solas lets out a sigh, hearing more worry in it than he cares to admit. Eyes scan the dark horizon, the mountains above looking as if some great beast has bitten into the bottom of the sky. There is only one monster on these shores, however, and he is bringing even more wreckage to the things he would wish to save. He was not completely truthful, a skill that is becoming alarming but still necessary. It was not many years ago that he found himself in  _Dirthavaren_ but more recently as he mourned the loss of Wisdom in this place of destitution. The memories he found here only strengthened his decision - this world is broken, the remnants of his people gone, and only fire shall bring regrowth.

But then he had returned to Skyhold to find her waiting at the bottom of the steps for him, the center of the universe there and a universe of possibility in her eyes and he…he is not sure of many things anymore. He is only sure that he wishes to erase the worry of her thoughts, to stand by her side when she needs a moment to catch her breath.

Solas rises and follows the map of her feet. He does not feel like companionship and flees to his own tent with a few soft words of goodnight to his allies. He only pauses to grab a wash bin and scrubs the blood and dirt from today off before settling to sleep. It is unsurprising that it doesn’t come easy. It never has here. Blackwall’s deep laughter echoes outside and the fire cracks and groans, and yet he hears the screams of the dying, the great structures of Halamshiral crumbling like consumed logs. Now he sees her turning away from him, anger and hurt in her eyes, an inevitability if he means to continue upon his path, and it is only another sin to add to the pyre.

Eventually the plains fall silent and he thinks he must dose off once or twice for now the fire’s shadow upon his tent is gone and he can almost hear Cassandra’s light snores. Something shuffles much closer and he peers down as starlight and skin slip into his tent. His elven eyes can see her in shades of light gray and muted colors and he does not speak when she falls forward, her knees coming to rest on either side of his hips.

“Ir abelas,” she apologizes, voice soft. “I should not have been cross with you. It’s not your fault and I…”

Solas’ hands reach for her waist as if they have always belonged there, skipping over the exposed flesh of her legs. He only seeks to comfort, thumbs rubbing small circles into her weary skin. “Will you reveal to me the troubles of your mind?”

“The Dales, the Elvhen. They were so weak, they let themselves be defeated and tarnished. They let their home be taken from them twice and left us clinging to scrapes of a past full of failure. And we Dalish proclaim them more worthy than whatever future we could build for ourselves if we weren’t so fixated on things long lost. How great could all of Elvhenan have been to be reduced to such rubble?”

She takes a breath and lets it go, the tone of her softening and growing surer at the same time, anger and frustration giving way to determination.

“You know my opinion of the Elvhen, but for all their faults those of the Dales came together and fought to stay that way. They found sense and beauty from a torn world, had their own land belonging to no one else. They thrived here, with whatever they were given. They made a  _home_  for us _._  How can I think so low of them when they did from so little?”

He could tell her of Elvhenan’s ancient splendor, of all the things he has seen and all the things he  _remembers_ , but his words are not a balm to this wound. Nor would they ease her mind- it was brilliant, but flawed, as flawed as any empire bloated on power and blind to its perversions. That the Dales managed to build a home for themselves, however futile the act, is more of a miracle than she can ever truly understand. 

Instead he reaches up to trace the lines of her vallaslin. “You are not to blame for their failures.”

“That is not what bothers me.” She grabs hold of his fingers and even in the dim light he can see the heated conviction in her eyes. “I cannot go back to Clan Lavellan. Not after this, not as it is now. I do not want to wander when I could have what the Dales had. I want a home, a place for our people. If there is not a place for us I will make one.”

He braces one hand behind them while the other wraps around her waist to hold her tight, to press their hearts together. He knows she does not seek solace in touch but he offers it all the same, the feel of his breath moving steadily, soft circles sweeping into her unbowed back. “I have little doubt you will take what you want from this world.”

“Good.” She shifts in his lap, the expression on her face changing with the motion. Arms come around his neck, nails nipping just so into his scalp. “Because you are something I want too.”

She kisses him and he rejoices to feel her warmth again after this day of questioning and sequestering. There is more heat to it, a demand and impatience that has been growing between them for weeks now. His heart knows what she seeks, his body yearns to give in to her demands, to abandon his hesitancy, but his mind still clings to rusted chains. They cannot hold forever if he remains, if he gives in. He wants to, oh does he want and want and want and he  _can’t-_

He holds her head still and moves just out of the range of her hunger no matter how desperately he wants to be devoured. “I can make you no promises-”

“I do not want them.” Lips press wet to his jaw as a hand trails a slow path down his chest, tickles along the waistline of his trousers. “All I want in this moment is you. I have known the taste of your tongue, the touch of your fingers, but I want all that you have to give me. I want to know the sounds you make, the places to touch that make you shiver.”

Fingers brush against the hardness growing between them and he stifles any of the sounds she wishes to hear. She finds the shape of him, tortures and teases and takes down his defenses brick by brick with every skilled stroke. “I want to know what you feel like against my palm, what you feel like inside me. I want to see what you look like when I break you apart.”

“Keela…”

“Solas, tell me what you want.” Her plea weakens his resolve and he welcomes the assault with a surrendering groan, gripping a fistful of hair and bringing her mouth to his. She is summer, like a season inescapable no matter if you close your eyes or prepare for winter. That he could ever turn her away is no longer something he can pretend. His lips leave hers and trail from the edge of her vallaslin and down the strong shape of her jaw. A heartbeat gallops beneath skin as he kisses into the valley of her collarbone. She shivers as he grazes it with his teeth and he can feel her loud appreciation rumble through her throat.

He tries to hold back his mirth at her horrified face when he suddenly pulls back and begins to scoot from underneath her. “You cannot be serious-”

If they are to continue this, to finish what each caress and hot breath has lead them to, then he will have every moment for himself and not the possible amusement of others. “I fear we will wake the whole camp and while you may have grown accustomed to publicity, I would rather keep some things private. Come.”

She takes his hand and stands, smirking in that way that has his heart bursting and his stomach tightening. “That was my intention.”

At that he does chuckle. Solas takes them south down the shoulder of the river and sets a languishing pace. At first Keela’s grip is anxious, but the further they walk the more relaxed her hold becomes. As they pass the liberated ramparts dotted with glowing fires, she finally lets out a sigh he thinks she must have been holding all day. “They look like fingers,” she says and he glances up at the monolithic rocks ahead.

“I have witnessed many tales involving these hills while exploring remnants in the Fade. Would you care to hear some of the more colorful ones?”

He hears only the twinkling of the river and their bare feet among the grass in response and thinks he has angered her anew. But a small, indulgent laugh leaves her throat, her hand tightening around his. “Yes, I would like that.”

Solas recounts a grand tale as they walk between the strange rocks. It is a yarn about hunters and giants, kings and trickery. The Dalish version is different from the original but has a wistfulness to it that he, for once, appreciates, and not for the first time does he contemplate his discomfort with her people. They are the remnants left from his greatest folly, but it is more than that. Perhaps it is because they remember so little, and he knows too much. 

They squeeze between a large, moss covered stone into another section of the Exalted Plains. Beyond it is an angle of ruins, its purpose lost to time and his memory As they slip towards the river once more a youthful nervousness creeps over him. They have reached his intended destination, but now Solas doubts his initial certainty - no, he is immeasurably certain that this is what he wants, but his want to keep her apart for both their sake curls back into his mind. 

He bides his time by unfurling the blanket under an arch of crumbling stone and dips down to smooth the fabric with absent hands. Solas can feel her gaze upon his skin and almost jumps as her hand clasps around his arm to drag him to his feet.

“Look at me Solas,” she commands. The edges of her endless eyes shimmer and yet there is no room for weakness or white lies to be found in her expression. “What do you want?””

Solas lets his touch wander to the soft slant of her mouth. Madness takes control and moves his thumb over her top lip.Her tongue licks the pad of skin and he all but hisses in response. Such sweet desires rush through his body like earthquakes and threaten to break him apart, make his chest constrict and grow heavy. She steps closer and her grasp does not let him shirk away this time.

“If you cannot speak it then show me.” Keela tilts her head back and drags his hands down the lines of her exposed neck. “Spell the words out upon my skin with your tongue and I will understand.”

She takes one hand lower and his breath skips to feel the sharp bud of her breast beneath his touch. “Strum your fingers up and down my body and I will hear the song of your heart.”

Her other hand releases his, reaches out and follows its companion’s path down his chest this time. Her fingers leave flames in their wake and when one slips just around the edge of his trousers and grazes his skin his whole body tingles with the want, the need, of her. Keela’s mouth turns up in an unrelenting smirk and he curses her, for she can be nothing but a desire demon bent on destroying him entirely. He swears he can see smoke curling from her smoldering gaze as her touch ghosts across his renewing erection.

“Bury yourself inside me and I will uncover the truth of you.” And then she’s clutching at him, hard enough to hurt and for a moment he loses all sense of the world. When he comes back to himself, he finds he’s smothering her between the cold stone of the arch, hips grinding against hers. Her treacherous hands are pinned above her head, but she is no prisoner. He is the one captured and bent to her will.

"I want this. I want you.” Her nose brushes his, a moment of softness that makes his heart ache and yearn and  _dream_.

He lets himself rest against her for a moment, closes his eyes to the weight of her words, of the ones building between them yet unspoken. “As do I. More than I should, more than I thought possible.”

“Well, then stop wasting my time.” He can feel her smirk and with a laugh chases after it.

They are a clash of lips and tongues desperate for the inferno within. Fast fingers unlace the leather ties of her shirt and let it slide free of shoulders to the ground. Her smalls surrender to his demands next and he wants to take a moment to gaze at her glory, but her greedy fingers have plundered into his breeches and squeeze around his shaft, making stars dance across his eyes.

He gladly returns the favor, a digit slipping through her and then inside. Her slick heat makes him groan anew as she gasps into his lips, his eagerness making her squirm. It has been a long time since he has been this intimate, but it doesn’t seem to matter that he fumbles - the wait has made her sensitive, forgiving in her delirium. With urgent touches they drive each other to growing pleasures and even though he wants to take her like he’s always imagined, he can’t bring himself to shake her hand away or stop his own from making her breathless. He feels like he could feel her forever this way and never grow tired of it.

While his patience stretches across time, Keela is a child of the here and now. Her embrace grows frantic, her moans turn into plaintive growls. She has waited long enough to feel him all along the length of her, to have him fill her to bursting. Fangs take his bottom lip and bite down with a force just shy of drawing blood. Solas’ hands come up and slam her shoulders back into the stone, a dangerous snarl of his own issuing a warning. He watches as she takes his fingers, soaked with the scent and slick of her, and devours them. Her tongue laps with enthusiasm and when she gives a sharp suck, he can tolerate it no more. Keela laughs, victory assured, as he lifts her and awkwardly deposits them both upon the blanket. Her smile turns smug to see the heady need in his eyes, but he has no plans to give into her demands just yet. He will see her smirk break and hear her lips beg for release - he will settle for no less than watching her break apart in turn as well.

Solas settles between her legs and kisses her insolent mouth. The taste of her still lingers on her tongue and he has never known something sweeter. He allows her to remove his tunic and relishes the feel of their warm skin together, soft and hard and right. When her wandering fingers reach the edge of his trousers, he sinks back out of her reach and caresses her neck, her shoulders, down over her heart. Her breasts quiver as breath lurches beneath her ribs and he is drawn to the pert flesh. Treasured time is taken tantalizing each dark nipple as if nothing else exists, and he enjoys how her skin grows hot and how her voice vibrates with sensation and desperation alike. 

Fingers pull and push his shoulders, her desires battling, but he will not be moved to obey. To show her, he bares his teeth and bites into the soft mound of flesh. Her cry of pleasure and pain is more exquisite than any music and he lingers for a few another second before giving her relief. He gently kisses the mark he’s made until her scampering breath begins to slow. Lips continue their southern march down her body and he memorizes every inch with enraptured gaze and worshiping mouth. A birthmark sits above the cut of her left hip and he lavishes attention upon it. Delightful laughter mixes in with heavy whispers as she twists from his tickling caress. Solas smiles on her skin as his expedition trails down to the inside of her thighs, licks and nibbles.

“Solas.” His name is another command as she hisses it between her clenched teeth.

He abandons the game and slips his tongue, slowly, slowly, inside her. They both moan as he tastes her. Keela grips at the blanket beneath her when the tip of his tongue circles her clit. She can’t keep the twitches of pleasure from shaking her limbs and groans escape her throat without permission. It is as if she is possessed and when he pulls the sensitive nub between his lips and sucks, her back arches all its own like a bowstring close to snapping. Trembling hands slide to his jaw and tilt it up just  _so_  to show him what she truly wants and the moan she lets out is long and rough as his tongue assaults her anew. Fingers slip inside and move, slow and steady and then harder, urgent. Her body ignites from the inside, waves of heat rushing up and down her skin. She cries out again and again until she can take no more. She is silent when she comes, mouth open and eyes squeezed shut as her body explodes and contracts at the same time.

Solas picks himself up and hovers over her to deposit soft pecks as she falls back to the ground. By the time he reaches her face, her eyes are clear and piercing, so alive he can see the Fade swirling in the green centers. “You are more beautiful than anything I have ever known, in the waking world or the next.”

Her smile is pleased, soft, her kiss even more so as she pulls him down to her. The touch begins sweet yet grows in a flash until they are boiling over once again, full of desperation and empty of each other. Keela is quick, controlling as she pushes his shoulder and hooks her leg beneath him. Solas topples to the ground and she is on him faster than any predator. Nails scratch into his flesh as she conquers his trousers and throws them away. They both are bared to the world, but there is nothing beyond their aching bodies and galloping hearts. Keela is delirious with desire as she wraps her fingers around him, tightening and stroking and drawing him higher, and Solas finds all his worries are but fleeting memories of some other man. This is what they both want. In this moment she is his and he is hers and there the universe ends.

Keela slides her sex against his once with agonizing slowness and captures his eyes before mercilessly taking him in one powerful motion. Solas jerks and clutches at her hips, nails digging into flesh, but it only makes her moan all the louder. Her hands press into his shoulders and they collide with determined, demanding strokes. They are beyond any words now and speak only in primal harmony or the language of touch. He marvels at the majesty of her, wild and free, untamed even as they claim one another. Claws drag down his chest to leave red lines, his hands dig deep into her sides as they press to reach higher, sink deeper. Her fingers flit between her folds and Keela tilts her head back with a hum as she takes his pleasure and her own to further heights. 

Her motions becoming erratic and Solas can recognize the sweet undulations coming from deep in her throat, but he is not finished with her. He all but throws her back to where she once reposed and captures the surprised yelp from her lips with a ravenous kiss. He’s inside her before she can think and swallows her every breath, every cry and moan, and gorges himself on her reverences until he can no longer hold them. Solas pulls away and sits back on his heels, grabbing her legs to wrap around his waist. His fingers find her swollen clit as he buries himself in her over and over.

Keela reaches for him but he is too far, so she clutches the blanket or fistfuls of hair to try to ground herself to a world she’s quickly leaving behind. He adores the way her breasts move with every thrust, how she writhes and yells out at his touch. He watches her body bend and tremble, watches as a silent scream bursts from her mouth as she unravels again. She is burning around him, hot and tight and perfect, and Solas follows her right over the edge. He has enough sense to slip from her and spill into the blanket beneath them as a torrent of electricity and thunder rushes through him.

It seems to take a blissful eternity until their breaths steady and hearts settle within their breasts. Solas collapses beside her, grabbing her skin to pull her half onto himself. Her arm latches around his glistening chest and her satisfied sigh tickles his neck. Solas kisses the top of her wet forehead before settling his chin on her raven hair. The world around them returns, saturated with the sounds of gentle night all but forgotten in their torrid embrace.

Keela speaks first, her voice mixed with heavy release and airy delight. “Do you think that memory will become etched into the Fade? Someday some other fadewalker will find it instead of tales of hunters and giants.”

Solas chuckles into her tresses. “I believe I will have to take great pains to lock it away for no other eyes to witness. It is not something I am inclined to share, although I make no lasting claims upon you.”

She brings her head up, chin resting on his shoulder. Everything about her is alive, here, so bright -he knows he should look away before she blinds everything, but he cannot. “Would that truly be so bad?” 

He tenses next to her, fears rushing back to swallow him whole. Sins and truths threaten to drag them both away, but there is no need to pull on his armor of half truths and distance. With a final kiss to his skin, she nestles back into his embrace without waiting for an answer, and he is glad she has kept her word when he cannot give his own - this is all she wished to seek, and yet…and yet he feels the edge of more in the way she lingers next to his side, sees it in every smile only for him, feels it as she reaches for him alone. There is more, if they mean to seek it.

He wants to answer her, to tell her it would be no burden at all to throw away his duties and embrace only her. It is what he wants - this, a home found in her that he could hardly have ever thought to find, a life without purpose and yet more precious than all the sparkling spires of a kingdom gone. It is what he wants, to love her, to be hers, but he is more than his wants. He imagines himself that wandering explorer in the future, sweeping the reborn lands for memories he left discarded because his duty is the only thing he can truly belong to. The future will be cruel to them, the further consequences of his actions unknown. If the past is any indication, whatever home is building between them will only find itself ripped apart.

But that is for later. For now, he keeps himself open and lets himself live as she does - in the present, free and bold. He kisses her temple, imagines instead a life where their paths are intertwined as gently as their fingers are now. In this moment they belong together and he will live a thousand lives in it for as long as he can. For now, he hopes and dreams, with eyes wide open, that for them history might be kind.


End file.
